Alex Dehgan is in charge of a $200 million effort to fund startups and other research and development endeavors as chief scientist of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Much of that funding is in the Bay Area.

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

Alex Dehgan is in charge of a $200 million effort to fund startups...

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Right, USAID chief scientist Alex Dehgan has partnered with institutions such as Stanford and UC Berkeley.

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

Right, USAID chief scientist Alex Dehgan has partnered with...

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The United States Agency for International Development head of science and technology Alex Dehgan talks about bay area partners and USAID goals in San Francisco, Calif., on Tuesday, July 16, 2013. Dehgan holds a Ph.D. and M.Sc. from The University of Chicago's Committee on Evolutionary Biology, a J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, and B.S. in Zoology and Political Science from Duke University.

(08-01) 16:14 PDT Berkeley -- Early in his career, Alex Dehgan spent three years living in a tent in Madagascar and studying lemurs, the furry, bug-eyed mammals made popular by the animated film "Madagascar."

But prompted by Sept. 11, Dehgan turned to working for the government, including in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now Dehgan is overseeing an ambitious push by the government to fight poverty, hunger, water shortages and other international humanitarian problems through new technology.

As the chief scientist and head of the Office of Science and Technology for the U.S. Agency for International Development, otherwise known as USAID, Dehgan is managing a $200 million effort to fund startups and other research and development endeavors.

Much of it is centered in the Bay Area. Among the agency's Silicon Valley partners is the Omidyar Network, the philanthropic investment firm founded by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife, Pam, which is helping to underwrite some of its initiatives.

The USAID is also pumping $20 million into UC Berkeley to create an engineering lab that will design and develop new technology, such as mobile apps that could improve health care or provide clean water in the developing world. And it has dedicated $25 million to Stanford, along with partners Tulane University and Makerere University in Uganda, to develop ways to make African communities more resilient to challenges such as civil conflict and disease.

During a recent trip to the Bay Area, Dehgan discussed how the USAID is tapping into the region's technology sector. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Q:Why have you brought this effort to Silicon Valley?

A: It's being able to harness great American ingenuity, and a lot of that ingenuity is happening in the Bay Area.

We're facing a set of challenges that are increasing exponentially. We've got 9.6 billion people on this planet by 2050. That's going to require us to produce 70 percent more food as a planet, not to mention doubling the amount of pesticide, nitrogen, phosphorus and the amount of irrigated area. Couple that with energy demands, climate change, environmental degradation, water scarcity issues - these are pretty wicked problems.

We want to move from an incremental approach to address these issues and move to a much more exponential approach. We can do that by harnessing the power of science, technology and innovation and by opening up how we solve those problems.

Q:One of the ways you're opening up innovation is through Grand Challenges. How do they work?

A: These Grand Challenges are one way to bring whole new people into the agency. We've had 2,500 innovators apply in three years.

All the grant challenges are open questions, (such as): How do we save lives at birth? How do we make that difference between the hospital and the hut irrelevant? That's the first Grand Challenge.

We set out a prize. (The recipients) get anywhere from $100,000 to $2 million depending on where they are, (such as) if they have a pilot they've already tested. Very simply it is acting as a fund to provide opportunities for people to take on some of these problems.

What we find is there is plenty of money out there for people to invest in developed world situations, but many of those technologies could be adapted or applied to address problems in the developing world.

Q:How else is the San Francisco Bay Area playing a role in the work you're doing?

A: We have invested in a development lab at UC Berkeley. We are also working with Stanford in a partnership with another development lab in Uganda. We find that the students on campus and the people who are in this area - there is the right ecosystem to help us address some of these problems.

We also want to empower them to work alongside of people in the developing world to solve these problems together, and to export that great ecosystem that contributed to American economic growth.

Traditionally the way we worked with universities in the past is they have been contractors for us or they've done very specific research. (With this initiative), we are giving the universities the creative space to be able to address these problems. We want them to innovate and incubate new companies and new technologies that can help us solve these problems.

Q:What made you to start an office of science and technology for USAID?

A: I worked for the Bronx Zoo in Afghanistan to help set up the first national park and to do the first wildlife surveys there. I was USAID-funded at the time. I recognized at the time that USAID had lost some of its historic strengths in science, technology and innovation.

When I was given the chance to help write the transition papers for the new administration, I was able to think about how to re-empower this agency using the power of science and technology.

The challenges we're facing are increasing exponentially, but our solutions were linear. So how do we ramp up the solutions? Where is the one place where we have exponential growth? That is in the power of technology, the power of connectivity.

Q:There seems to be increased interest from Washington to work with Silicon Valley. Why?

A: This administration in the initial inaugural speech made a commitment to restore science to its rightful place. It's an administration that cares deeply about science and development.

It was also the right place at the right time. It doesn't matter if you're a Democrat or a Republican. We want to address these changes, because these challenges we face are threats to our national security. There are also future economic opportunities.

If we can develop a device, for instance, that is a cell phone-based microscope that allows us to detect malaria and tuberculosis at low price points, then not only can we solve problems abroad, but we can also reduce health care costs in the United States.

Alex Dehgan

Title: Chief scientist, head of the Office of Science and Technology, U.S. Agency for International Development.